Rules, courts, police, taxes and armies through time

Tests: 4 of 11 right · Exam: 1 of 4 right · Kind: plain · Understood: 8 of 15 · Run: 2026-10-18, commit f3c23ea72

Lesson 68 of the history course of Mova's primary school, as Mova's small model took its tests: it had read this lesson and the ones before it and learned from their exercises. Each test shows the options in the order the student saw them, its choice, the right answer, the score of every option and why it chose. The lesson itself, sentence by sentence with trees and pragmatics: the lesson in the corpora.

Every question of this lesson and each of its options parsed by Mova, with trees and pragmatics: the lesson's questions in the corpora.

Test 1 · right ✓

Mia says hot-iron trials are so mid. What replaced them?

1. Witnesses and juries, which were fairer — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
2. Fighting dragons to prove you were innocent — no support
3. Tossing a coin to decide who was guilty — no support
4. Nothing, they still happen in Britain today — no support

Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 2 · wrong ✗

Freddie asks who the twelve people on the court show are. What do they do?

1. They are the judge's own family and friends — ← Mova's choice · score 3
2. Ordinary people judge the evidence together — ✓ the right answer · no support
3. They sing songs between the trials — score 3
4. They guard the prison and lock the doors — no support

Why: It took the question to ask what is done. It chose option 1 with score 3, tied with another option at 3 (the first shown, or the one claiming less beyond what it knows, wins). Its support: lesson 31, line 9: «Enslaved people worked on plantations without pay or freedom, and families could be sold apart, yet they kept music, faith, stories and families alive.», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same doer «people» (+2); the same thing acted on «music» (+1). The right option, 2, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 3 · right ✓

Oliver's nan calls police bobbies. Leo says police are ancient like pyramids. Fair?

1. Not quite; modern police are about 200 years old — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 4
2. Yes, the pharaohs had police cars and police stations — no support
3. Yes, the police even came before farming did — no support
4. No, police were only invented in about 2010 — no support

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 1 with score 4, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 68, line 2: «What really happened: for centuries most soldiers were farmers who fought between harvests, modern police are only about 200 years old, prison as the main puni…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same doer «modern police» (+2); the same property (+1); the same light verb (be, have, do, get, go) (+1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 4 · right ✓

Leo thinks jails always existed as punishment. What would a medieval judge more likely give?

1. Community service, done online — no support
2. A parking ticket for his horse — no support
3. Ten long years in a stone prison — no support
4. A fine, shaming or sending away — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 2

Why: It took the question to ask what it is done to. It chose option 4 with score 2, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 68, line 9: «For much of history, punishments were fines, shaming, being sent away or physical punishment; early jails mostly held people waiting for trial, and prison as t…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «send away» (+3). Against it: a different doer (counts against) (-1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 5 · wrong ✗

Tom's dad says «window tax, mate» about bricked-up windows. What does it show?

1. Builders forgot the windows — ← Mova's choice · no support
2. Bricks were cheaper than air — no support
3. Taxes can change how people build and live — ✓ the right answer · no support
4. Windows were illegal — no support

Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 6 · right ✓

Josh's dad grumbles about income tax; Grandad says it was meant to be temporary. True?

1. Yes, it began in 1799 for war and stayed — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 6
2. No, it only started in 2020 — score 4
3. No, it's as old as the pyramids of Egypt — no support
4. Yes, and it was ended for good in 1800 — no support

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 1 with score 6, against 4 for the next best. Its support: lesson 68, line 2: «What really happened: for centuries most soldiers were farmers who fought between harvests, modern police are only about 200 years old, prison as the main puni…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «start» (+2); the same doer «income tax» (+2); the same place «1799» (+2). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 7 · wrong ✗

Ivy's game has armies always ready. What would happen in real life if all soldiers left at harvest time?

1. Harvests would double, because soldiers are lazy — ← Mova's choice · no support
2. Armies would get much stronger and bigger — no support
3. Crops would rot and people go hungry — ✓ the right answer · no support
4. Nothing at all would happen to anyone — no support

Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 8 · wrong ✗

Aisha says the treaty at the UN is older than Jesus. Is that right?

1. No, it is from 1066 — no support
2. Yes, it is from around 1259 BCE — ✓ the right answer · no support
3. No, it was signed in 1945 — score 4
4. Yes, it is 300,000 years old — ← Mova's choice · score 8

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 4 with score 8, against 4 for the next best. Its support: lesson 27, line 18: «Old maps had sea monsters and blank spaces where mapmakers did not know what was there, and within about a hundred years European maps showed fairly accurate c…», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same doer «european maps» (+5); the same property (+3). The right option, 2, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 9 · wrong ✗

«why's that red cross everywhere bruv?» asks Ben. What is the answer?

1. It's a sign for a chain of shops that sell plasters — ← Mova's choice · no support
2. It marks help for wounded people that must be protected — ✓ the right answer · no support
3. It means danger, so you should run away from it, bruv — no support
4. It's just the logo of a big football club from Switzerland — no support

Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 10 · wrong ✗

Molly says Domesday Book sounds like a horror film. What did «doom» mean?

1. Judgement, because the records were final — ✓ the right answer · score 4
2. The end of the world, which people feared — no support
3. A kind of tax on doors and windows — ← Mova's choice · score 6
4. Monsters and ghosts that haunted the land — score 4

Why: It took the question to ask what it is done to. It chose option 3 with score 6, against 4 for the next best. Its support: lesson 68, line 15: «In 1086 William the Conqueror had England's land, people and animals counted in the Domesday Book, for taxes; «doom» then meant judgement, because the records…», reached through the remembered sentence the question matched. What matched: a different thing acted on (counts against) (+3); the same action «mean» (+2); the same doer «doom» (+1). The right option, 1, scored 4. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 11 · wrong ✗

Zara asks since when «innocent until proven guilty». What is fair?

1. Old roots in Roman law, though not always followed — ✓ the right answer · no support
2. Since the days of trial by ordeal and hot iron — ← Mova's choice · score 8
3. Only since last year, when a new law was passed — no support
4. It's not a real idea, just something on TV shows — no support

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 2 with score 8, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 68, line 3: «Think of a playground argument: you can toss a coin, or you can ask witnesses what they saw. Old trials by ordeal were like the coin, asking God to show the tr…», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same doer «ordeal» (+5); the same action «try» (+3). The right option, 1, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Exam question 1 · formal language · wrong ✗

Identify the principal reason for the decline of trial by ordeal in medieval Europe after 1215.

1. Parliament abolished all courts of law in the kingdom — no support
2. Juries were prohibited by a decree of the king — no support
3. Trial by ordeal was proven always to be correct — ← Mova's choice · score 4
4. The Church instructed priests to cease participation — ✓ the right answer · no support

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 3 with score 4, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 68, line 6: «In medieval Europe, trial by ordeal asked God to show the truth, for example by checking if a burn healed; in 1215 the Church told priests to stop taking part,…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «try» (+2); the same doer «ordeal» (+2). The right option, 4, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Exam question 2 · formal language · wrong ✗

Select the response consistent with the established facts concerning the window tax in England.

1. It was introduced by the Romans and abolished by William the Conqueror — ← Mova's choice · no support
2. It was levied from 1696 to 1851 and led some owners to brick up windows — ✓ the right answer · no support
3. It was a tax upon glass bottles and drinking vessels — no support
4. It encouraged owners to add more windows to their houses — no support

Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Exam question 3 · formal language · right ✓

Which of the following statements most accurately characterises military service for much of history?

1. Many soldiers were agricultural workers serving between harvests — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
2. All soldiers were full-time professionals from the earliest times — no support
3. Armies consisted chiefly of children under the age of twelve — no support
4. Military service was entirely unknown before 1900 — no support

Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Exam question 4 · formal language · wrong ✗

Ascertain the purpose of the first Geneva Convention of 1864.

1. The compilation of the Domesday Book — ← Mova's choice · no support
2. The creation of the Metropolitan Police — no support
3. The establishment of income tax — no support
4. The protection of wounded soldiers — ✓ the right answer · no support

Why: Nothing it remembers matched the question, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/